ABSTRACT
In English medium classrooms, Marathi can take a subversive but sanctioned role in the Marathi-speaking Hindu-majority schools and classrooms, further entrenching ideologies and segregation in education of languages along caste and religious lines. Another way Marathi can appear in classroom discourse is through its sanctioned use within bilingual pedagogy. Bilingual pedagogy and value afforded to Marathi creates public space for Marathi on behalf of middle-class and upper-caste community members. I argue in this chapter that the pedagogical style at Nandanvan, which holds at its center Marathi medium education as a defining feature of the school, produces middle-class citizens with expectations for shudhh Marathi engagement in a broader public community. Students learn ways in which their use of language signals specific sociopolitical caste positions and distinctions in Pune and Marathi mother-tongue speakers can use Marathi as a resource differently from Muslim students and low-caste Hindu students.
